


Give Yourself A Moment

by knifelesbian



Category: Runaways (TV 2017)
Genre: Angst, CHASE LOVES GERT SO MUCH, Childhood Friends AU, F/F, F/M, Karolina Dean/Nico Minoru - Freeform, Porn With Plot, and its actually the b plot not just subtext this time! yay!, because victor stein is the worst man alive, chase stein/gert yorkes - Freeform, fwb au, i cried writing this so if that means anything, mentions of abuse, more plot than porn actually, normal au so the pride isnt a thing, not a lot but its there, okay so you know how i said i wouldnt write the straight person nasty? I lied, or if it is the kids dont know asdfghjkl
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-14
Updated: 2018-01-14
Packaged: 2019-03-04 22:31:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13374414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/knifelesbian/pseuds/knifelesbian
Summary: When Gert says she wants a friend with benefits, Chase jumps at the chance. but will they be able to keep it casual?





	Give Yourself A Moment

The thing is, technically, Gert doesn't need sex. She knows it isn't necessary for her survival, or happiness. Biologically, she could've stayed virginal until she died and she would be absolutely fine.

But sex is fun, okay? And she shouldn't not feel that way because some conservative straight white dude who believes himself in charge of society told her to.

So she puts up on Snapchat 'I have #noshame and I'm looking for a fuck buddy so hit me up I guess? Must be in my age range but gender doesn't matter.' Because since she dumped Abby a month and a half ago she hasn't had sex at all and it's getting tiresome. If she could go to an alternate timeline where Abby hadn't cheated on her, she'd have stayed with her just for all the sex they were having. It's such a good stress reliever, and Gert is nothing if not stressed.

~~~~~

When Chase is walking into school Thursday morning, he checks Snapchat, intending to send streaks and check people's stories, maybe watch Gert's story for a third time since yesterday. It's not like he's obsessed, or whatever, because they're not even friends anymore, and they don't really talk to each other much.

But he does, maybe, have a little crush on her. He has since they were kids, going on adventures in the woods behind her house. All through elementary school they were in the same class, and they'd been the best of friends until middle school, when they just.....stopped hanging out. He doesn't know why it happened, and he's pretended not to care for so long. But it's hard to get over the first girl you ever fell for.

So he checks Gert's story for the third time, expecting something common, a 'sign this petition' maybe, or a selfie. Chase has enough self control to not screenshot every selfie she puts up, but it's hard to fight, sometimes.

What he is _not_ expecting to see is Gert asking after a fuck buddy.

His phone slips out of his hand in surprise, clatters onto the sidewalk. He doesn't move, frozen in- shock? Is it shock, that he's feeling? Because holy shit, could he do this? Could he offer this? Maybe? _Fuck._

And of course that's when Gert walks past, halfway through a passive greeting when she actually sees the look on his face and his phone on the ground.

"Chase," she says, eyebrows furrowed in concern as she picks up his phone and hands it to him, "Are you okay?" Because she's nice like that, because they used to be friends, because if she thinks something's wrong you can trust Gert to check on you.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine," he says belatedly. "Thanks."

"No worries," she says, still looking a bit concerned as she walks into school, her purple hair bouncing as she walks. Fuck.

When he gets home after a very distracted and unproductive school day, he pulls out his phone and starts to type a message to Gert's number that he still has somehow, because she hasn't changed her number in years and every time Chase get's a new phone her number is one of the first he puts in.

He rewrites the message ten different times, rewriting and backspacing until he thinks he's got it down, then hits send.

~~~~~

Gert is sitting in her room working on homework when her phone pings. She checks it, thinking it's Karolina or Molly, who texts her from her room two doors down more often then she should. But she's not expecting it to be Chase Stein.

Chase had been one of those childhood friends that you never really forget about, the kind that when she's awake at three am she wonders what happened? She still says hi to him when she can, just so he knows that she's still there. Gert doesn't know why she does that.

She swipes open her phone, thinking he's just going to ask a homework question for their Spanish class, but then she sees the actual message and almost throws her phone across the room.

**_Hey, I heard you're looking for a fuck buddy? I'd like to apply._ **

**_'I'd like to apply' asdfghjkl Chase it's not an internship._ **  
**_But sure, sounds fun._ **

**_Really?_ **

**_Yeah. Do u wanna meet up this Saturday? My parents r gone 'til really late at nite and Molly has a sleepover_ **

Gert doesn't know how she's possibly coming off as calm right now. Asking after a fuck buddy is supposed to mean having sex with someone you don't know all that well, having some no-strings-attached kind of fun. It is not supposed to entail planning to sleep with your childhood best friend who's really hot and charming now because of course he is.

**_How late r ur parents home?_ **

**_3AM ish they do it every Saturday_ **

**_Then yeah what time do u want me over_ **

**_Around 8 is good_ **

**_C u then_ **

Gert shuts off her phone and screams into a pillow.

She doesn't really see him the next two days, completely on accident. Molly keeps asking her if she's okay, and only kind of, really, but she's chill about it and that's what matters.

Saturday comes and, just so she's not twiddling her thumbs all day, she starts and finishes three different essays for her creative writing and political science classes. She kind of gets lost in it, and the polisci one she's writing about women in politics ends up three pages longer than it needs to be when she prints it off. Whoops. She also does a bit of painting, but she's kind of a shitty artist so that's less important. She only paints because her old therapist told her it would be calming, and he was right, so she keeps doing it, even if her portraits and landscapes look more like abstract paintings.

Molly leaves for the sleepover at six, telling Gert to eat something because 'I know you haven't left your room since this morning'. So she heads downstairs with a paintbrush stuck behind her ear to make a smoothie. While she's chopping up a banana to put in the blender, Chase calls.

Her first thought is that he's cancelling, that he doesn't want to do this, which sucks because she's really been lookin forward to it.

She presses 'answer' and sticks the phone between her ear and her shoulder so she can keep cutting the fruit.

"Hey, what's up?" she says casually, like she isn't getting more and more disappointed by the second.

"Oh, I wanted to make sure we're still on for tonight." Instantly, her mood brightens. So she is having sex tonight. Awesome.

"Yeah, totally- fuck!" Gert slices her finger with the knife, because she wasn't paying enough attention and she's a dumbass, "Fuck, ow, ow, ow," she scrambles to the sink and puts her hand under the water. _Fuck._

"Holy shit, are you okay?" Chase sounds like he's about to call 911, which is cute but unnecessary, as is thinking he's cute because catching feelings is Not the plan here.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine, I just can't be trusted with sharp objects, I guess," She puts him on speaker while she searches for a Band-Aid, "I was making a smoothie because I lowkey forgot to eat today, but I forgot that I can't multitask, so I was trying to cut fruit and talk to you at the same time."

"Never a good idea, I'm clearly too distracting," he teases.

"Yeah, I'm just overcome thinking about you." Gert jokingly makes her voice breathy as she wraps the Band-Aid over the cut, but the other end of the line goes silent, and she hears Chase suck in a breath. _Interesting._

"So, I am still coming over, right? Your answer kind of got cut off earlier when you stabbed yourself cutting a strawberry." Even though he's trying to hide it with teasing, Gert can tell he's nervous about her answer. Maybe he'd been just as worried about cancelling as she had.

"First of all, it was a mango, you asshole. Second of all, duh. Of course you are. Unless you don't want to, but I'm pretty sure that's not the case." Was there something in her water this morning that made her this bold?

"Damn, called out."

"Yeah, well, don't be obvious next time. Around eight is still good with you, right?"

"I'll be there."

~~~~~

Chase pulls into the Yorkes driveway at exactly eight o'clock, because he's been driving around the area since seven and just didn't have the guts to show up early.

Gert opens the door and greets him, but he doesn't respond right away because she looks fantastic. She's wearing a pair of paint splattered overalls, rolled at the ankle so she doesn't trip over them, and under it she's wearing this lacy black bra-that's-not-a-bra that ties at the neck because the actual reason she invited him over is because she wants to kill him through being the hottest thing he's ever seen. Gert's hair is messy and she's got a smear of lip gloss across her lips. _God, if you're out there-_

Chase lets out a shuddering breath, and her mouth curls into a smirk. "What did I say about being obvious?"

"Hm? Oh, uh," he's totally scrambling right now.

"Jesus, Chase," Gert says, pulling him through the door and shutting it behind him. She tugs him by the hand up to her room, and they're both smiling and kind of giggly the whole way up the stairs. They get to her room and sit on her bed- _you've been here before you shouldn't be this nervous,_ his mind says. But he doesn't want to be, so he pretends he isn't until it works.

"Are you one of those people who needs music on, or are we good here?"

"We're good here." So, so, good.

"Awesome," and then she puts one hand on his cheek and twists the other into his shirt and pulls him in, kissing him long and steady.

~~~~~

Kissing Chase is a dream Gert never wants to wake up from.

His hands go around her waist like they're meant to be there, and his nose presses into her cheek as he deepens the kiss. Gert licks into his mouth and she feels his tongue move against hers, and it's not long before she's straddling him, sitting in his lap like she's done it a million times before. He loosens the straps of her overalls and they slide down her arms, she pulls her forearms out of the straps and suddenly she's making out with a boy in nothing but a bra and a baggy pair of jeans. Gert moves forward in his lap, ruts against him just a little, and she can feel him start to get hard as he moans into the kiss, pulling her even closer. She slides her hands down, down, down, and considers slipping her fingers under his jeans before deciding against it, instead tugging at the hem of his t-shirt until he pulls back and tugs it off. Chase, from years of school sports and working out, is unbelievably, unbelievably built. She runs her hands down smooth skin as she kisses him deeply, and this time she does dip her the tips of her fingers under his jeans, under his boxers.

He whines a little, all but begging for more, but she pulls back instead, even stops kissing him for a moment as she reaches up and unties the knot behind her neck. The lacy fabric slips down her breasts, and Chase, hands still on her back, undoes the clasp one-handed. The bra falls onto his lap, and he looks down at it for a second before moving forward to kiss down her neck, stopping at her clavicle and sucking. She keens, and ruts against him again. Fuck, she wants her pants off right now. Chase starts kissing his way down her chest, stopping every so often and leaving little marks that will definitely be there tomorrow. He leaves tiny kisses all over her breasts, avoiding her nipples until he runs his tongue over her left one and she cries out. This is starting to not be enough for her, and Chase seems to agree as he picks her up- super hot, by the way- and lays her down on the bed. He looms over Gert, and she shimmies out of her overalls as she thinks, okay, this is it.

But Chase, who's already pulled off his jeans by now, doesn't pull himself out of his boxers. Instead, he starts kissing down her chest again, going lower and lower until he reaches her hips.

He presses a kiss to her hipbone, asking, "This is okay, right?" in a hoarse voice that does things to her. She answers with a high pitched "yes" that Gert has never heard come out of her mouth before. She lifts her hips so he can pull her panties down her legs, and she kicks them off, spreading her legs.

Chase blinks slowly, one two three times, like he can't believe he's seeing her like this, laid out in front of him. He leans down and starts kissing the inside of her thighs, and Gert feels like she can't breathe. Eventually, he actually puts his mouth on her, and Gert chokes on air. He runs his tongue heavy over her clit, then starts licking short, hot stripes over it. He goes lower, slides his tongue into her shallowly, and her hands going into his hair with a moan, tugging lightly. Her legs fall open wider, and his tongue goes deeper, and she's lost to feeling of him.

She feels like she can't focus as he eats her out, like a building could explode across the street and she wouldn't notice. Her legs go over his shoulders at one point, and he moans against her, the vibrations feeling like fucking magic. He does a zig-zag with his tongue, and suddenly it's too much. She does actually want to get fucked tonight, you know.

"Okay, okay, stop," she says, breathless. Chase makes a confused noise, but pulls away anyway, and she moves her legs off his shoulders and pulls him up, half on top of her.

"Would you grab that key on that hook, please?" Gert asks breathlessly. The key necklace is usually around her neck when her parents are in the house, because they're nosy people and some things are private, like the top drawer in her nightstand. He hands her the key a little confusedly, and she shifts under him and unlocks it, rooting around for a condom. The drawer has everything that she doesn't want anyone to know about in it, a few boxes of condoms, a couple individually wrapped dental dams, her vibrator, and a jar of cash to buy stuff that she doesn't want showing up on her parents bank account.

Chase's eyebrows go up when he sees what's in the drawer, and he says, "You know, I could've just gotten the one I brought." His voice is low, like he doesn't want to ruin the moment by talking.

"Yes, you could've, but your jeans are on the other side of the room and you just went down on me for a half hour, so I don't think I could even wait that long." His eyes darken as he kisses her hard and takes the condom from her hand. He pulls off his boxers, finally, and rolls the condom over his cock. He pulls back from the kiss, almost like he think he can't do both at once, like it'd just be too much, and honestly Gert agrees.

Chase rubs over her entrance with his cock for a moment, then pushes into her slowly, and Gert swears she sees stars. He thrusts into her, filling her up.

Gert can't stop running her mouth, _"ah ah ah yes Chase fuck yes"_ as he fucks into her, still slow but fast enough that she's already close. He presses his forehead into her collarbone and slips one hand down her front, rubbing at her clit, and then he hits her sweet spot and she moans so loud she's sure the neighbours can hear them. He hits it again and she's there, floating on a high so good all she can say is his name, breathless and satisfied. He thrusts a few more times and then buries himself into her as he finishes.

He catches his breath, then pulls out and rolls off of her. "That was good for you, right?" He asks, as if he didn't just fuck her within an inch of her life.

"It was fantastic, Chase." she feels like her entire body is just putty right now, like she can't really move.

"Good, that's good." He smiles, bright and satisfied. Gert feels like she's going to see it every time she blinks for days.

~~~~~

Chase drives home in a daze, unable to stop replaying the night in his mind.

Once he'd gotten dressed, he'd asked Gert if this would happen again, and she'd said, breathy and sweet, "Most likely. I'll call you, okay?" he'd nodded, then leaned down and kissed her softly, because he wanted to say goodbye but he couldn't get the words out, because he wanted to kiss her again. He's pretty sure kissing anyone else is ruined for him, now, which is not good because he really doesn't want to go and fall in love with her when that's not what Gert wants or is expecting from this.

He looked back, but she didn't see him, too busy ghosting her fingers over her lips, smiling contentedly. He'd grinned and shut the door behind him, but now he just can't stop.

He's not sure he wants to.

~~~~~

After Gert showers, she goes about picking up the clothes that are kind of just strewn all across her floor, because she doesn't know how to take off clothes normally, apparently. In the corner, she finds Chase's hoodie that he'd taken off as soon as they got to her room. She considers just folding it up and putting it away, but then she gets a better idea.

**(a snap of Gert in Chase's red hoodie, zipped up halfway, cutting off at her smirking mouth) you left this here, do u want me to bring it in on Monday?**

**(a snap of half of Chase's face, smiling and with a clear blush) keep it. It looks better on u**

**(a snap of Gert's hoodie-covered shoulder) oh. thank u**

She sleeps in the hoodie, because it's comfortable and she can't be bothered to change. She's languid and sleepy, like she almost always is after sex, and she kind of doesn't want to move. Another reason, maybe, if she were to admit it to herself, is that Chase's hoodie smells like him, like his tangerine shampoo and his dumb Givenchy cologne that she put him on, by the way, a birthday gift when they were twelve that he used until it ran out then bought a new bottle of. And then kept buying new bottles of. Gert remembers buying it for him, using three months allowance to do so, thinking, _no friend of mine is going to use Axe_. She'd had an older friend at the time, and the boys she'd hung out with all smelled like Axe and Gert had hated it.

The next morning, she heads over to Karolina's to hang out. If it was up to her, she probably would've just slept all day. But Karolina, though she literally can't boil water, wants to make brownies, and you don't say no to Karolina.

Gert walks through the door unannounced and traipses into the kitchen.

"So how are you not at church right now?" She asks. Karolina's mother is a pastor at one of the big churches in the neighborhood, it was the whole reason they moved here a few years ago, and Karolina is religious as well.

"Hi to you too, by the way," Karolina says, turning to her from where she'd been getting chocolate chips from the cupboard. "And if you must know, since I came out my mom is being, like, uber supportive? And I told her how the church made me feel when I was younger, and she said I don't have to go unless I want to or if there's an event now."

"Oh, that's nice of her." Gert lifts herself onto to counter and places her bag beside her.

"It is, but she's also trying to set me with that girl from the church, you know, Destiny?" She gets what's left of the ingredients set up on the island.

"She's cute, but you can't get with her because you're into Nico, right?"

Nico is a hot goth girl who goes to Atlas. She made out with Karolina at a party last year, and Karolina hasn't gotten over her since. The only problem? She's got a boyfriend. Alex is great and all, but when you're in the way of Gert's best friend getting the girl, you're kind of hard to love.

"Yeah. Here, start on the first part of the batter?"

Gert gets started, knowing this is just going to turn into her making brownies while Karolina stares over shoulder. Almost unconsciously, she starts singing as she bakes.

__________

Oh, someone had fun last night.

Gert hasn't been this loose and genuinely happy since she was with Abby, and Karolina always knew (unwillingly, by the way) that they'd had sex the day before because Gert would sing constantly. Usually Madonna or Cindy Lauper, but sometimes there'd be some Carly Rae Jepsen thrown in there too, which always meant that Gert had had a great time the night before.

Gert had a great time the night before.

"So," Karolina says, trying to figure out the best way to approach this, then just decides on blunt. "Who'd you sleep with last night?"

Gert chokes on air. "Um, no one, shut up."

"Come on, I saw you were looking for a fuck buddy, so you found one, right? Do I know them?" The answer, to be honest, is probably no. Gert knows practically everyone in passing, can probably rattle off a list of kids who go their school off the top of her head and name half the student body. Karolina, on the other hand, knows her friends, the kids who go to her church, and most of the schools Gays, and that's it.

"Uh, no, no you don't, definitely not." She's got that look on her face that means she's lying, so Karolina starts making guesses until one sticks.

"Okay, so I do know them. Okay, who do we both know that you would willingly sleep with.........Elle Livingston? No, she's got a girlfriend, how about James Young? Oh, it definitely wasn't him, look at your face, how about Macy Lodge? I'm just going to keep guessing until you tell me, you know."

Gert doesn't turn around from stirring the brownie mix, and just says, "You can say the entire school roster and I still won't tell you, so go ahead."

"Come on, really? Fine. Susan Jones? You think she's hot, you've said so, but she doesn't have Snapchat so she's out, what about Quinn Marlowe? Wait, you asked them out last year and they said no. Hmm, this one's a long shot, but what about Chase Stein?" Karolina is about to dismiss that, because no way, right? But Gert drops the spoon she'd been using to melt the chocolate, and she hears her take in a breath.

_"Oh my God you slept with Chase Stein!"_

"Um, yes. I did." She picks up the spoon and scrapes the chocolate into the mix, then stirs it all together, clearly avoiding eye contact.

"So?"

Gert pours the batter into the tray and puts it in the oven. "So, what?"

"So, how was it? How was he?" Gert has this thing where she won't talk about something unless she's been asked about it, and Karolina knows she probably just opened the floodgates.

~~~~~

"It was fucking transcendent, Karo. I don't know if I'll get over it. He ate me out for a half hour, can you believe?" She gets a little breathless even thinking about it.

"Damn, that must be new for you, since The Demon always said she was 'allergic to oral.'" Karolina hates Abby. With a passion. Probably more than Gert does, to be honest.

See, Gert is (mostly) over the whole Abby Debacle. On the other hand, if Karolina saw her on the street she'd push her into traffic.

Gert remembers the exact day she met Abby Summers and she wishes she could forget it. When they first met, Abby had been working at a coffee shop at the mall. Gert had come in one day to study, and they'd flirted while she got her coffee, and later, Abby spent her whole break sitting with her. She'd even written her number on Gert's cup. It'd been a real life meet cute, and they'd dated for eight months before she'd realized Abby was cheating on her. Gert had dropped by her house to surprise her, they did that all the time, because she knew her parents were out of town and thought they could do a night in. But when she opened the door, she'd heard Abby and someone else. And not sexually, either. Maybe that would've been better if it was just sex. Maybe they could've talked that through. But that wasn't it. She'd heard the TV blaring and walked towards it, thinking, _this isn't what I think it is I'm being paranoid,_ but when she walked through the living room door, she'd seen Abby and some girl kissing on the couch. Gert had dropped her bag, and Abby had sprung away from the girl, seen her, and immediately started apologizing, "Angel, I'm so sorry I shouldn't have done this, please," completely ignoring the girl that was with her. Gert still wonders how long Abby had been seeing her. She had picked up her bag and left, completely ignoring everything as she tried to leave, when the girl said in an outraged voice, "You have a girlfriend?!?" and Gert had turned around, said, "She did," and slammed the door behind her. She'd driven to an empty parking lot, parked, and cried until she felt like she could call someone. Gert had called Karolina first, and maybe that's why she hates Abby so much. She'd seen Gert blubbering and freaking out, absolutely torn apart because of her.

"Can we not? I'm in a great mood. Anyways, it was so good. And I'm pretty sure he legitimately thinks I'm super hot, and that's always a plus when you're having sex with someone."

"Oh, true."

"Karo, you're a virgin." Even though virginity is totally a social construct that Gert doesn't fuck with, you don't really know until you know, you know?

Okay, so that doesn't make sense. Gert's brain is a little wonky today.

"Hey, it's called being a lesbian, we're lonely by design."

"Oh please, every time we go anywhere you get a girl's number, you wouldn't be lonely if you weren't into someone else."

"True, so true."

~~~~~

They have sex again on Thursday.

Gert had texted him the day before, asking him if he wanted to 'hang out' the next day. Chase, who hadn't been able to stop thinking about her since Saturday, had said yes, probably too quickly.

She comes over to his house this time, showing up at his door in jeans and his sweater with nothing underneath it. They're alone, so being in his room doesn't really matter, but he still carries her to his room.

Gert's legs wrapped around him and his hands on her ass to support her adds up to a very slow trip up the stairs, because she keeps sucking little marks into his neck and he has to stop at the landing to sit her down on top of a cabinet and press their lips together long and slow, because he likes slow. Slow implies that they have time.

When they (eventually) get to his room, he presses Gert against the wall and kisses her, one hand still on her ass and the other cupping her face, slipping his tongue into her mouth. He grinds against her, and she moans into the kiss. She pulls away from him and leans away from the wall so she can get her arms out of the hoodie, and Chase's other hand slides back down again so she doesn't fall.

"I have this feeling," Gert says as he starts leaving open mouthed kisses all over her neck, "That I'm going to have to buy more scarves," Chase doesn't know how they're doing this right now and she can still tease him, still be as sarcastic as ever.

"That'd be a good idea, yeah," he presses another kiss to her neck, then asks, "Hey, can I?" As he taps the button of her jeans because all he really wants to do is get his hands on her. She nods, and he undoes the button and unzips all the way down. Chase doesn't know who gave him the ability to do stuff like this one handed, but fuck if he isn't grateful for it.

He slips his hand into her panties- lace, again, he wonders how much money she spends on lingerie then decides that's for a different time- and cups her, ghosting over her outer lips. He feels more than hears Gert's pulse quicken against his mouth, and shallowly dips a finger inside of her, delighting in the way she lets out a breathy moan. He goes deeper, curling his fingers to feel bigger inside of her because he knows girls like that, and when Gert whispers his name like a prayer it feels like a point proven. He slides a second finger into her, and she's so wet now that it just glides in. It's quiet, quiet enough that the only sound is Get's breathy little noises and his fingers sliding in and out of her.

"You know," she says, eyes closed and eyebrows furrowed in pleasure, "You could probably fuck me like this and I'd be okay with that." Even though he's literally fingering her right now, she still manages to get the upper hand, because as soon as she says it all he can picture is doing just that.

"Yeah?" he says instead, because he's cool, he's chill.

"Yeah."

"That's going to require me putting you down, you know that, right?" She whines a little, but pulls his hand away anyways so she can uncross her legs from his back and he sets her down. He drops his pants and boxers as she wriggles out of her jeans and panties, grabbing a condom out of her pocket first and handing it to him. Chase picks her up again and presses her into the wall.

"Why are you the one who always has the condom? We're literally in my house," he teases as he rips open the wrapping and slides it over his dick.

"Hey, don't blame me for being prepared- _holy shit."_ he pushes into her, and maybe he should have given more of a warning, but the look on her face is one that he knows he's going to see every time he closes his eyes for the next few days, her eyelids fluttering and her mouth falling open in pleasure.

He thrusts into her slowly, his hands squeezing Gert's thighs to keep her where she is. She's making those noises again, the ones that had been keeping Chase up at night since Saturday, _"fuck Chase ah ah ah oohh"_. He fucks into her harder, her walls tight and warm around him in a way that feels even better than last time, somehow.

He's loving the way she's saying his name right now, _"Chase, Chase, Chase, Chase,"_ her nails digging into his shoulders in a way that guarantees there's going to be scratch marks in the morning.

He pulls out almost completely, then presses into her again, going faster this time because he's starting to get close, and so is Gert, judging by the way she gasps. She wraps one arm around his neck and pulls him closer, pressing their foreheads together and kissing him shortly. With her other hand, she reaches down and starts playing with her clit.

Chase knows when she comes because her breathing suddenly gets very fast, and then slows. He fucks into her quickly, finishing off, and then pulls out and gently puts her down. He pulls off the condom and ties it, tossing it in the trash. Gert wobbles over to the bed and flops down, trying to catch her breath. Chase lies down beside her, and she rests her head on his shoulder. It's an awesome feeling, like this one moment of casual intimacy could beat going to the moon and seeing the stars up close.

"I'll go in a bit, I just," Gert pauses to yawn, "need to rest for a little while."

 _Stay as long as you want,_ he wants to say, _stay until morning if you have to._

~~~~~

Gert and Chase get together eleven more times over the next month, and there are pros and cons to this.

Pros: she's having sex a lot and she's more relaxed than she's been in ages.

Cons: she's starting to catch feelings for Chase Stein.

It started last week, when she'd stayed over longer than usual after the fact. They were lying on his bed and Chase was fiddling with her fingers absentmindedly.

"Are your parents really gone this often?" she asked, because she's nothing if not a blunt instrument.

"Well, Mom is always at those high society meetings, you know, charity balls and cotillions and auctions and stuff, and Dad is either at his lab downtown or halfway across the world, depends on the day."

"Ah, the inimitable Victor Stein. He still....himself as much as I remember?"

"Unfortunately."

She'd sighed, because she really had been hoping for a no. Victor Stein was arguably one of the most famous people in the tech world, and in being that he helped make a safer, greener earth. But he could never help his son the same way.

"Did you know I punched him in the balls once?" Gert said, because she knew it would make him laugh.

"What?"

"Yeah, I was playing some game with Molly in the backyard and he was talking to my mom and I zoomed past him with my arms out and I guess I hit him because he doubled over and cursed me out. That's also the day I heard 'fuck' for the first time."

As predicted, Chase cracked up. Gert kind of loves his laugh. It's always genuine and real, and when she heard it she'd smiled. And then she'd thought, _oh, fuck._

Because she's not supposed to have distinct thoughts on how much she likes his laugh. Because they were barely even friends when this started and now she's trying to find ways to make him happy. Because, what, she likes him now?

Gert needs a drink.

"Hey, are you ready to go?" Molly says, snapping Gert out of her dilemma. Shit, right, she'd promised to drive Molly to dance practice.

They get in the car, Molly in her 'athleisure' clothes and Gert in......Chase's sweater and a very old pair of jeans. She absolutely can't be bothered to put effort right now. It's a PD day, a Friday, and she just started her period, anyone who sees her today is lucky she even got out of bed.

She parks the car, and Molly runs to the lawn where the dance team practices. Gert will never understand why they do this outside, but whenever she mentions this to Molly she looks at her like she's crazy, so what does she know?

She pulls out a book and curls up in the drivers seat, because Molly's practice only lasts an hour and the drive is fifteen minutes with traffic, so it'd be useless to drive home, wait twenty minutes, and drive back. It's hard to pay attention to it though, because Eiffel keeps glaring at her from the lawn. Gert doesn't really understand what her problem is. Though, to be fair, Gert doesn't really understand _Eiffel_.

She really does try not to hate on other girls because #feminism, but Eiffel is so entitled, and rude for no reason, and she's named after a landmark. While that's 'not a valid reason to hate someone' according to Molly, it definitely says something about the type of people she comes from.

It's not entirely Eiffel's fault that she can't pay attention, though, because Gert is a little caught up in overthinking her dilemma, because being rational just isn't something she can do, ever, apparently.

It's kind of speak of the devil and he shall appear when Chase calls her, his cover photo a snap he sent her last week making a dumb face. She laughs a little every time she sees it.

"Hey," she says when she picks up. Her tone is fond, and she kind of hates herself for it.

"Hey, what's up?"

"I'm waiting for Molly to finish up with dance. Chase, _you_ called _me."_

"Oh, right." He's nervous. Why is he nervous? "Do you wanna hang out tomorrow? Not quote unquote hang out, like, actually hang out? Go see a movie, get lunch together or something?" Ah. That's why he's nervous.

Even though 'friends with benefits' implies that they're, you know, friends, they don't really get together for anything other than the benefits part.

"I'm in a lot of pain right now, and probably will be for the next few days, so I don't really want to leave the house, but if you want to drop over that'd be cool with me."

"Woah, are you okay?" Aw, he sounds so concerned.

"Yeah, yeah, Aunt Flo's just visiting, I'll be fine." Gert surpassed being embarrassed about her period a long time ago, especially around boys, because honestly, what's the point?

"I didn't know your parents had any siblings." Oh, _wow._ Really?

"It's a euphemism, Chase. It's just that time of the month for me." She hears him go _'ohhh'_ , and says, "You know, sometimes I forget you don't have a lot of friends who are girls, and then something like this happens and I'm viscerally reminded."

"Hey, that's not fair, I have friends who are girls." Chase, even after quitting the LAX team, still has a lot of popular buddies, which is kind of weird to watch because he'll be standing in a group of them and completely ignore a whole subset.

"Yeah, but not friends who would, like, ask you to pick up tampons for them."

"Now _that's_ fair."

"Anyways, yeah, I can hang out but not go places because I'm kind of dying. The only reason I'm even awake right now is Molly couldn't miss practice."

"That sounds......not fun. What time do you want me to show up?"

"Any time after twelve would be good. _What the fuck is her problem?"_ She doesn't really mean to say that, it kind of just slips out, because Eiffel is glaring at her again, and Gert is just. Tired.

"Jesus, Gert, who?"

"Eiffel. I'm sitting in my car minding my own damn business and she keeps looking at me like killed her grandmother."

"Ohhh. That kind of.......might be my fault?" His voice goes kind of high in embarrassment.

"How is Brunette Regina George being pissed at me your fault?"

"Well, umm, she's into me. And I clearly don't feel the same. But she kept cornering me, at school, at parties, and I might've implied we were together so she'd leave me alone." Gert almost wants to laugh. Of course.

"How does that just come out?"

"Well, I said I was seeing someone to get her off my back, and she kept asking, like it's any of her business, and you've been on my mind a lot so I said you." Chase's voice comes out shaky, like he's afraid she's going to berate him.

"Oh. Well then it's fine. I didn't do anything and neither did you, she's just being unnecessarily possessive."

"I......Yeah, she is. So, twelvish?"

"Yeah! See you then. Hey, Molly's done, I've gotta go."

"Bye."

She hangs up, and only then does the entirety of their conversation catch up to her.

_You've been on my mind a lot._

Gert drives home, Molly chattering about practice in the passenger seat, but she's only half paying attention. She wonders if Chase knows how romantic that sounded.

~~~~~

He did it, holy shit, Chase did it. He asked to hang out with Gert for real and she said yes. He's honestly kind of proud of himself.

What he's not proud of himself for: not knowing what Gert's favourite kind of chocolate bar is.

He's at CVS in the candy section, and he can't decide for the life of him which type to buy. He wants to bring her chocolate when he goes to her house tomorrow, because he wants to subtly show her He's There For Her, and he knows girls in general like chocolate when it's that time of the month, if only from TV and movies.

Chase wishes he wasn't so new to caring about someone this way, he wishes he could stop trying to court her or whatever it is he's doing, he wishes he knew what kind of damn chocolate bar she likes.

He calls Karolina, because she's the only friend of Gert's who's number he has, and the least likely to snitch on him.

"Chase? Hi?" She sounds confused, which is fair because they literally never talk and aren't friends, but Chase is desperate, ok?

"Hi, weird question, what's Gert's favourite type of chocolate?"

"Uh, Twix bars. Chase, it's eleven o'clock in the night, what the Hell?"

"Sorry, I'm sorry, we're hanging out tomorrow and I want to surprise her. And I've been standing in the candy aisle at CVS for the past twenty minutes. I think the employees are about to kick me out." They've been eyeing him weirdly, and Chase saw one of them go off to find the manager a minute ago.

"Oh, so you guys are still......" Gert told Karolina? Huh.

"..........Yep."

"Oh."

"Sorry I bothered you, thanks for, uh......."

"You're welcome. And she didn't tell me, by the way, if that's something you'd be pissed about, though I don't know why you would be. A few Sundays ago we were hanging out and I could, you know, tell, because she has this thing that she does? And she wouldn't tell me who it was and I kept guessing and when I said your name, totally not expecting to be right, she had a quote unquote reaction. So. Yeah. Bye!" Chase gets a vibe that she had been wanting to tell that story and it slipped out of her on accident. He also really wants to know what _reaction_ means.

He buys a of Twix bar and goes home to not sleep while he waits for tomorrow to come.

~~~~~

  
Gert is dying. She's lying on the couch in her pajamas with a heating pad on her stomach, and she's waiting for the Midol to kick in, because no matter what her mother says, sometimes modern medicine actually does what it's supposed to.

It's around eleven thirty, so Chase is probably going to show up in a while, but moving is not on the agenda right now. You know what is on the agenda? A nap.

She sleeps until Molly comes stomping down the stairs, flinging herself down on the couch next to Gert.

"You feeling any better?"

"A little," she sits up, and tucks in her legs so Molly isn't on the very edge of the couch.

"So does that mean we'll do stuff today or is lying on the couch in despair your plan?"

"I'm having someone over, but I think we're just gonna be watching movies and playing board games or whatever."

"Is this like, a Karolina someone or a someone you like someone?" She says, waggling her eyebrows.

"He's a somewhere in-between someone," Gert smiles just thinking about him. How did she fall for Chase so fast, again? She's such a chump.

"Ohhh, okay. If he's anything remotely like Abby I'll hurt him so bad he can't walk. Do you want a sandwich? I'm gonna make sandwiches." Even endlessly positive Molly hates Abby, damn. Gert would feel bad for her if she wasn't so deserving of it.

Ten minutes later she comes back with two grilled cheeses, and Gert has just finished hers when the doorbell rings. Molly shouts "I'll get it!" Probably because she wants to see who the boy is. Gert sticks a mint in her mouth, wipes her face with her sleeve, and combs a hand through her hair, because even if it goes against her feminist sensibilities to clean up for a boy, there's no way in hell she's going to willingly see him with bad breath and grease on her face.

"Oh, so you're the boyfriend?" Molly says loudly, "Gert, why didn't you just tell me Chase was the boyfriend?" Gert is going to kill her sister. She's only doing this to patronize her and it is _working._

"Molly, please, please shut up. I'm like, begging."

"Never! Come on in, sister's boyfriend."

"Thanks, Molly."

Gert hears more than sees him walk in, and she says with her hands over her face, "I would like to state for the jury that I did not say the word boyfriend, Molly is just being a little shit."

"I figured." he sits down next to her, and holds up a plastic bag. "These are for you."

She takes the bag from him, confused. What could he possibly have gotten her- Oh.

"You're an angel, did you know that? A literal, actual angel." On impulse, she leans in and kisses his cheek.

Gert opens the first Twix bar, splitting it in two and handing the right half to Chase, or trying to, anyways. He seems a little out of it, and his face is really red. She pokes his arm, and he snaps out of it, taking his half and smiling in thanks.

"Chase, how did you know Twix is my favourite type of chocolate bar? You got some psychic powers you're not telling me about?" she teases.

"Maybe I just know you that well."

"Oh." Gert doesn't know if he's trying to be romantic, but it works. Her traitorous heart is all aflutter right now.

"So, what's the plan here? Do you want to watch a movie or something?"

"Only if it's Star Wars."

"Oh my god, how are you still obsessed with those movies? It's been literally a decade."

"Love never fades, bucko. Pass me the remote?"

She turns on A New Hope, because it's one of the best and her original favourite, but they're not really paying attention because they've both seen it so many times, having petty arguments over the dialogue.

"Who's hotter, Leia or Han?"�

  
"Gert, that's an unfair question and we both know it. But Leia. Definitely Leia." She knew this would be his answer, because she remembers making him watch Return of the Jedi when they were twelve and him promptly buying a copy for his own house. She'd been absolutely obsessed with Star Wars when she was a kid, which is why she has physical and digital copies of every movie in the franchise. And also petitioned Netflix to put the whole series on their site.

"Okay, harder question: who aged better?"

"Han. Hands down. He looks like an old fox who gets everyone's numbers but doesn't use them because he's dedicated to his work now and it made him all dependable."

"Thought about this a lot, have you?"

"Yes. Duh. Is Luke a dog or a cat person?"

"That's fake, he'd never be able to pick."

"True, except he's totally a dog person."

"No, he's not."

"Yes, he is."

"No," she pokes him in the chest, because they're just facing each other now, not even looking at the movie, "he's not. You're wrong."

"He is, you're the one who's wrong here." Chase leans closer, pretending to be serious, but Gert can see how hard he's trying not to laugh. She's struggling herself.

"Submit defeat, Chase. You're wrong."

And then they both burst into giggles.

She leans into him, then, because her stomach really hurts and so does everything else and Chase is warm, and she knows he'll let her get away with it. He moves his arm around her shoulder, and Gert feels comfortable, and her favourite movie is playing, so it doesn't come as a surprise when she falls asleep.

 

~~~~~

When Chase is sure she's fallen asleep, he turns the volume way down. He doesn't want her to wake up yet if she's not feeling great.

He kind of can't believe he got away with saying he 'just knows her that well'. It's probably the most romantic shit he's ever said in his life, and when he said it Gert had blushed, a rosy pink flooding her cheeks.

And that kiss. It was the most innocent kiss he's ever gotten from anyone that wasn't a relative, and it was such a relationship type kiss that Chase kind of short circuited.

Chase runs his fingers through her silky hair, enjoying the moment. He's more at peace then he's been in ages, half watching an old Star Wars movie with the girl he likes curled up against him.

And then Stacey walks into the room.

"Oh! Chase, hi, uh, what are you doing here?"

He taps a finger to his lips, because he doesn't want Gert to wake up when she just fell asleep. "We're watching A New Hope," which is probably the most vague and avoiding thing he's ever said to anyone, maybe ever.

"Okaayy, kiddo, not to be rude but- _why_ are you here?"

How is Chase possibly going to answer this. There's no way he can say to Gert's _mother_ who he's known ever since he can remember, 'oh yeah me and your daughter are casually having sex, are you cool with that?' he'll get, like, triple murdered (Stacey, then Gert, then Dale).

He kind of scrambles, but Stacey says, "Are you guys," she motions between the two of them, "together now? You know, I always said you two would date once you got older. You were always so cute! You were each others first kiss and everything, and I told Dale you'd get together. He owes me money, actually, I'm gonna go find him."

And then she just up and leaves, not even letting Chase speak up to correct her. Shit.

~~~~~

Gert wakes up a half hour later and doesn't really want to move. She's so cozy, curled up against Chase. But she is, technically, hosting, so it'd be rude to just nap the entire time he's here, even if she wants to.

She pats him on the chest and sits up, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes.

"Sorry I fell asleep on you. I really didn't mean to."

"It's okay. I know you're not feeling great, don't worry about it." His voice is soft, and he's got this look in his eye like all he wants to do is give her a hug. It's kind of doing things to her.

"Hey, you wanna play Scrabble?" Because Gert doesn't want to fall down that rabbit hole right now.

"But you always beat me!" Chase makes an over-exaggerated sad face, and she giggles.

"That's what makes it fun! Come on, please?"

"Fine."

Gert absolutely decimates him at Scrabble, and they play twice before Chase (gently) bullies her into playing Battleship.

They're halfway through the game when Chase says, apropos of nothing, "Did you know your parents bet on whether we'd get together or not? That's a little insane, right?"

"What, really? They're so weird. Wait, Chase, how do you even know that?" Gert swears that if Chase told her mother that they're together she will kick him out. Eiffel she can handle. Her notoriously nosy mother? No way.

"While you were asleep she came in, saw us, and immediately assumed we were dating. Would not let me get a word in, and what would I have said, anyways? Oh, sorry, actually we're just casually having sex? Also, I win."

"What? Aw, man. I lost and I have to deal with nosy parents? Lady Luck is really taking you by the hand today, huh?"

They play Checkers next, then Connect Four. They accidently miss 'the most important scene, Chase, who even are you' and Gert rewinds to watch it, because the cinematography is perfection and she has to see it. She can tell Chase is kind of laughing at her behind his hand, but it's a laughing _with_ you kind of laugh, so whatever.

When Chase leaves, she walks him to the door and gives him a long hug.

"Thanks for coming today," she says with her face pressed into his chest.

"No place I'd rather be."

~~~~~

Chase drives home feeling like he's floating. This is _progress._

~~~~~

"So, Chase, huh?" Her mom asks at dinner that night.

"Mo-om, can we not? Please?"

"Oh, honey, we just want to know what's going on in your life. Come on, tell us, how did you to get together?" Her dad asks over his salad, because they're teaming up on her now, of course.

"Ugh, fine. We're not even dating, okay? You just assumed we were, and you wouldn't let him get a word in. We started talking recently, and we're friends again. That's it." She tucks a piece of hair behind her ear.

"Then how come he got all blushy when I called him your boyfriend, huh? And he bought you chocolate. _I_ don't even buy you chocolate."

"He bought me chocolate because he's nice, Molly, unlike a certain annoying little sister I could mention." Molly makes a face at her, and Gert makes one back, then Molly, then Gert, until her dad slams his fork down on the table.

"Girls, stop it." they both half-heartedly apologize, and her mother uses this to get back to what she considers the Most Important Topic right now.

"Are you sure he's not your boyfriend, honey? He kind of seems like your boyfriend."

"No, he's not, okay? Jeez, can we stop talking about this now?"

Her parents try to hide their long sighs, but they don't try very hard because they're doing it specifically to make her feel bad. But she's not talking about it, and they can't make her. She's already messed up about it enough as it is, she doesn't need her entire family weighing in.

~~~~~

"Chase, sweetie, don't forget about the charity ball we're having in a few weeks, make sure you find a date."

"What? Why didn't you tell me I needed a date?" Chase is unnaturally panicked about this, now.

"Honey, you have three weeks, you'll be fine. Just ask that girl from school, what's her name, Eiffel?" Oh fuck no. Not if his life depended on it.

"Chase, we don't use that kind of language here and you know that. And what's so bad about Eiffel?" He said that out loud? Shit.

"She's just mean, Mom. And she won't leave me alone, even though I told her I'm seeing so-" **_FUCK._**

His mother sits down next to him on the couch, suddenly very interested.

"Oh? Who are you seeing?"

"Uh, nobody, nobody. Hey, I've gotta go, okay? Told a friend I'd meet up with them."

That was close.

~~~~~

They're making out in Gert's car in the school parking lot. She parked it in the far corner this morning, because she's smart, even if it means she had to run all the way across the parking lot in the pouring rain.

She's sitting in his lap, and she's wearing a skirt, so this could devolve very quickly if she lets it. But this is good, what they're doing right now, and she is not walking into her science quiz right after having sex with someone, it is _not happening._

She's holding Chase's face as she kisses him, and his hands are situated somewhere on her back, thought they're probably going to slide down to her ass anytime now, knowing Chase.

He kisses down her neck, and she moans, falling back and accidently bumping into the horn. The loud _honk!_ startles Chase away from her neck, and they both burst into giggles.

"Good job," he says, because he's a jerk. He's all smiley, like he always is after she kisses him. Gert is kind of obsessed with it.

"Hey, I- you know what, whatever," she says, voice hoarse, and kisses him again.

They make out until her 'ten minutes to the bell so get your ass back to school' alarm goes off, and they get out of the car just as the rain starts to get really bad again, because the world hates her.

"Oh, gross." she makes a face at the rain, begging it to stop as they jog back to the school. She'd been hoping to have an actual conversation with Chase, but whatever. She'll rope him into walking her to class and do it then.

Her and Chase have been doing that for the past week or so, just talking to each about anything at any chance they get. His name in her phone is no longer 'Chase Stein', it's three blue hearts in a row, because it's his favourite colour and she's becoming a bit of a sap. He told her she looked pretty last night on FaceTime and she didn't stop smiling until she fell asleep. It's kind of getting out of hand.

The two of them make it under the awning, and Gert rings out her hair so she's not walking into school with a wet mop.

"Hey, um......." he says as they walk to class.

"Yeah?" Gert's walking closer than she needs to, and she'd say it's because she's cold but she would be lying.

"Would you wanna go to this thing with me in a couple weeks? My mother is throwing a charity ball and I need a date." The last words come out slow, probably because he's nervous about what she'll say. Chase is rarely nervous, but when he is, she can tell.

"Sure, what's the dress code? I follow you on Instagram and some of those events are like, crazy fancy."

"Really, you'll go?"

"Why are you always surprised when I want to spend time with you?" she hears a kid behind her go _'oooohh'_ like he's found some Hot Gossip, and she shoots him a look that so clearly says 'go fuck yourself' that he trips over his own feet.

"I don't know, you just have this air about you, like you don't care what anybody thinks about you? And that's you, and it's a really cool quality about you, but it does make me a little wary asking you stuff because sometimes I don't know what you'll say."

"Awww, you think I'm cool?" Because there's no way that she's going to talk about how her aloofness is a very well cultivated front to hide her insecurities in the middle of the school hallway.

"Well, duh." Gert smiles. He's so sweet. "The dress code is high end black tie."

"And that means?" She's so glad she doesn't live in High Society, because she knows for a fact that Chase is going to know an exact definition and she could never do that.

"Full-length dress without a train but not overly poofy. Oh, this is me." He leans down and pecks her on the lips like it's nothing, and walks away from her and through Mrs. Vincent's door.

Gert stands there for a second, blinking hard because did that just happen? then walks to science class in a daze.

She's pretty sure she failed the quiz.

~~~~~

"Since when are you dating Gert Yorkes?" Nico asks as he sits down in the desk next to her. Nico is in all his classes, so they'd struck up a friendship at the start of the year. She's probably the closest thing he has to a best friend since quitting the team, even if they don't really have deep discussions about much.

"What? Umm, I don't know where you got that that idea-" because what else is he supposed to say? 'I really like her and we're sleeping together but I have no clue if something will come of it the way I want it to'? Nuh-uh. Not in math class.

"You just kissed her before you walked into class? Dude, are you okay?"

"Oh, shit."

~~~~~

It's the weekend, a few days after what Gert has been calling 'the bunny kiss' in her head. She doesn't know why she calls it that, but for some reason, it seems appropriate. She hasn't talked to Chase about it, mostly because he hasn't said anything and there's way she's bringing it up.

"So, what you're saying is, he kissed you like you've been together for months and you don't know what to do about it?" Karolina says as her, Gert, and Molly walk through the mall doors. Gert needs a Fancy Outfit for the event Chase invited her to, and who better to choose it with than her favourite cheerleaders?

"Yes, that is what I'm saying. And it's not like I didn't like it, it was a really sweet kiss, but now it's just like, what's going to happen, you know?"

"You could ask him out," Molly says, and Karolina makes a face that says she definitely agrees.

"Nope." She's scared, okay? Scared of what will happen if she's been reading this wrong. Scared that he won't want to talk to her anymore, just scared in general.

"So what are going to do, then? Just wait for him to ask you out for realzy's?"

"Molly, don't say fake words you heard on Nick At Nite. Ohh, lets go in here." Being questioned about her feelings: averted.

They look around Aldo for what feels like forever and finally find the right pair of shoes. They're strappy and awesome, but then they face the next problem: finding the dress.

"Okay, so pros of today is this mall has a Macys, cons are Gert not wanting to talk about her feelings."

"Can you let me be emotionally unavailable in peace, please?" she says as she looks through the racks.

"You are not emotionally unavailable, Gert, I heard you squealing about Chase calling you pretty just last week." Okay so that part is true. Not that she'll admit it, though, because she's a strong woman and what some boy thinks about how she looks doesn't matter to her.

Except that it does. A lot.

"Um, shut up, Molly, I do not squeal." Deflection is a girl's best friend, right?

"Yes you do, but fine, deny yourself a boyfriend if you want to. How about this one?" She holds up a sparkly dress, and when Gert nods, she throws it over her shoulder.

After picking out an absolute barrage of dresses for her to try on, they really are gonna be here all day, they head to the dressing rooms.

Gert throws on the first one, a pink tulle garment with flowers embroidered over the chest. When she walks out in it, Molly oohs and ahhs, but Karolina makes a face.

"You look great, but it just doesn't look like you, if that makes sense?" Only kind of, but Gert trusts her judgement.

The next two dresses are nothing to call home about, but this one is definitely a serious contender. The dark green fabric is tight, and the plunging neckline that goes all the way down to her sternum makes her look absolutely stunning. Karolina seems to think so, anyway.

"Hooooly shit. I really am too gay for this." Her face is bright red, and she has a hand dramatially clutched over her heart.

"I guess you could call it homo-verload, huh?" Molly is hanging over the edge of the couch, upside down. Gert does not envy the headache she's going to have when she stands up. They both groan, and Molly giggles. Their dad really has to stop teaching her puns.

"So? What do we think?" She checks herself out in the mirror, and hmm. She's undecided.

"That Chase will be dead from boner-related causes when he sees you." Karolina, having Recovered, is back to teasing her now.

"What's a boner?" Molly is so innocent it hurts sometimes, but there's no way she's explaining how a penis works to a fourteen year old in Macys.

"It's like.....when you really like something." Gert says instead.

"Oh! I have a boner for hats."

"No. You don't." Karolina says. "Anyway, is this the one or are you gonna try on a few more?"

Gert contemplates while she checks over the dress in the mirror, then decides that she wants to try on one more that she'd picked out herself. Also, it's kind of hard to walk in this. She takes a picture that shows off what the dress accentuates in the mirror before she takes it off and sends it to Chase without thinking about it to much, captioning it with 'don't think I'll go with this one' because she's evil.

The next dress, the one she's pretty sure is _the_ dress, is so easy to slip on it feels like water. The dark golden silk pools at the small of her back, and the slit up her left leg might be a bit much, but she looks hot as hell, if she does say so herself.

Gert opens the curtain, and Karolina lets out a low whistle while Molly gives her two thumbs up and a big smile. She tries on the shoes with it, just to check, then steels herself to spend 100$ on a dress. And that's the price when it's on _sale_.

She leaves that part of the mall- it's a huge mall- with 140 dollars less on her debt card, but a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do. Is she quoting a Disney movie right now? Probably. Molly's been humming 'Once Upon A Dream' since they left the store.

"Do you want to get lunch at Portobello's while we're here?" Karolina asks, and Gert nods absentmindedly as she spots the jewelry store that has The Necklace.

"Sure, but do you mind if I pop in there for a few minutes? I want to check on something." Karolina and Molly nod, and say they're going to go to the bookstore a few shops down, and she promises to meet them there in ten minutes.

She walks in and pretends to look around for a minute before bee-lining to where she knows The Necklace is on display.

It's a pink tourmaline heart on a gold chain, and Gert has been eyeing it since it first came in three months ago. It's the prettiest thing she's ever seen, even if it's supposedly not her style, and she really, really wants it.

But it's also way, way, way too expensive.

~~~~~

Chase really doesn't want to be spending his Saturday at the mall, but Nico needed a ride and what else is he going to do with his time, really?

"It was really nice of you to stay instead of dropping me off, Chase, you really didn't have to." She's carrying three different bags and Chase has four in his own hands. Nico does a lot of shopping.

"But you wanted me to, right?" She nods, and that's that. Except......"Just out of curiosity, why didn't you ask Wilder to drive you?"

She sighs, and slows down. "We're not doing so hot right now. He was keeping something pretty important from me, and he'd been keeping it from me for a long time, and my trust in him has kind of broken, you know?" Oh well that's awful. Nico is kind of like his sister, and seeing her unhappy really sucks.

"I'm really sorry, Neeks." He put a hand on her shoulder, and she smiles at him.

"Thanks. Now how about you, huh? How's our resident violet haired bombshell?" He blushes.

"I think I really like her, Nico. I invited her to this charity ball thing my mom is throwing in a few weeks, and I think....I'm gonna ask her to be my girlfriend. If I can." He gets nervous just thinking about it.

"Is this before or after you get over your 'she doesn't like me even though she's made out with me on multiple occasions' complex?" Nico really does take no prisoners.

"Uh, excuse you, I'll have you know- is that Gert?"

And there she is. Chase can see her through the window of the jewelry store looking at something in the display case. She looks gorgeous, and he smiles reflexively.

"Hey, do you mind if I-"

"Go ahead, Loverboy. I'm headed to the bookstore, meet me there in ten?" Nico interrupts, because she's a goth angel.

"You're awesome!"

"Buy a ring in there while you're at it, that'll really impress her!"

"I take it back!"

~~~~~

Gert is still staring at The Necklace, and one of the employees has started to eye her like he wants to talk to her but doesn't have the courage yet.

"Gert? Is that you?"

She spins around, a confused smile on her lips. Chase is the last person she thought she'd see today, but she's not too mad about it.

"Chase, hi! What are you doing here?" It's kind of a stupid question, but his smile doesn't drop.

"Nico asked me to drop her off and I didn't really have anything else to do today so I've kind of just been following her around. Did you know there are about a thousand different shades of black, and none of them match? It's crazy." He's got that look on his face that means he's teasing, and even if it isn't her it makes her a tiny bit giddy. She loves joking around with him.

"Oh, Nico's here? Cool. Wait, why didn't she ask Alex to drive her?" That's odd.

"That's what I said, but- oh. Not my secret. Sorry, I just don't want to....."

"No, it's fine. It's nice that you won't just spill her secrets." _He's reliable_ , a voice that sounds suspiciously like her mother says, _he wouldn't cheat on you._

"Well, yeah. So what are you looking at?" he joins her at the display case, looking with a furrow in his brow at the jewelry.

"Oh, just this necklace that I've wanted forever, but it's way too expensive. The pink one, see? I think it's beautiful." she leans closer to the glass, pointing at the necklace with one finger.

~~~~~

"Yeah, it is." But Chase is looking at Gert when he says it.

~~~~~

"Hi, are you two looking at the engagement rings?" The employee that had been eyeing her before says, apparently less frightened of her now that she isn't alone.

"What!?"

"What!?"

"Oh, sorry, I must have misread that. It's just, the engagement rings are right there and you two are so obviously a couple I just-" _so obviously a couple._ Gert is going to die in a jewelry store and it's going to be this guy's fault.

"We're seventeen, man. Chill." The employee's eyes widen, and he walks to the other side of the store without a word.

They turn to each with an identical 'what the fuck' look, and burst out laughing.

__________

"Hey, isn't that the girl you like?" Molly asks Karolina. A goth girl has just walked into to the bookstore- Nico, she thinks her name is? And from pictures Karolina has shown her on occasion, she appears to be the same girl.

"What? Oh my god." Karolina pulls Molly behind a shelf and asks, "Do I look okay? Is my hair fine? You know what, it doesn't matter, I have to get out of here."

They start to walk out of the store, Karolina with her head down, and they almost make it past Nico when Molly decides to take matters into her own hands and hip-checks Karolina into Nico. It's perfectly executed, and Nico reaches out immediately to catch her. Molly really should join the hockey team.

She gives Karolina two thumbs and makes her way to the comics section, picking out one with a dinosaur and a teenage girl on the cover. She flips through it until Gert shows up, boyfriend in tow.

For the record, Molly doesn't care much Gert says they're not dating. She's seen how Chase looks at her, like she's the best thing he's ever seen, and if that doesn't warrant dating Molly doesn't know what does.

"Are Chase and Nico coming to Portobello's with us?" She asks, closing the comic and putting it back on the shelf. The premise is kind of sad, and that's not the mood she's in.

Gert turns to Chase and asks if he wants to come, and he agrees enthusiastically. Karolina and Nico join them, and they agree too, so the five of them head to the restaurant.

It occurs to Molly about halfway through the meal that this is basically a double date plus one, so when she asks the group for a picture of them for Instagram, she captions it 'fifth-wheeling at Portobello's today' and hits post. Gert is probably going to get mad at her, but does she care? No.

~~~~~

Before going to bed that night, Chase plugs in his phone. He really had been meaning to all day, he just forgot, with all that's been going on.

Lunch was fun. Karolina and Nico flirted with each other the whole time, and when they drove back home she looked a lot happier, and said something vague about 'knowing what to do now'. And he got to spend time with Gert, which is always a plus.

His phone dings and he pulls it out, now that it's at a reasonable charge. Why oh why does he always forget to plug in his phone?

He opens Snapchat, and sees a message from Gert, dated six hours ago. Weird.

He checks it and- oh. _Fuck._

~~~~~

Gert is glad Chase's house is empty because she's pretty sure she's going to scream. He's got his head between her legs under the blankets, going agonizingly slow. He delves his tongue into her, and Gert twists her fingers into his hair. He starts licking short little stripes over her clit and she's almost there when Chase pulls away suddenly, moving to leave little kisses all over the inside of the thighs in a way that makes her sure she'll find little red marks there tomorrow, but also in a way that is so fucking teasing that she kind of wants to cuss him out.

Chase puts his mouth back on her, then, zigzagging his tongue across her and making her moan so loud she's really glad they're alone. He sucks on her clit and suddenly she's coming, gasping for breath. Her toes curl, and her hands go slack from his hair.

He kisses up Gert's body until they're face to face and she can feel his hot breath on her mouth.

"Hi," he whispers, a grin spread across his lips. It's a dreamy kind of smile, evergreen and sweet as honey.

"Hi," and Gert is smiling too. He's infectious.

"You look really beautiful like this," he breathes, because Chase is nothing if not romantic. She wonders if he knows that he already has her heart, or if he just does it because he wants to, because that's just the way he is. She suspects it's the second.

"Thank you," Gert doesn't know why they're whispering. It's not like she wasn't being loud as hell not one minute ago. But she supposes that neither of them want to break what they have here, this easy quiet.

"Do you want to keep going? We don't have to."

"No, I want to. Just....slow, okay?"

He nods, and she hands him the condom so he can slip it on. It's become a bit of an inside joke, now.

Chase pushes into her, slow and careful as his forehead falls to her collarbone. His hair brushes against her chin as he thrusts into her, and she presses a hand into the soft skin of his back, the other curling into the hair at the nape of his neck. He presses at just the right spot inside her, and she hums in pleasure, biting down on her smile. Chase moves at a languid pace, and soon he moves a hand down to rub small circles against her clit, and she lets out a whine as she finishes. He thrusts into her a few more times as he comes, pulling out of her and rolling off her, tying the condom and tossing it in the trash.

Gert pulls him back to her, and he wraps an arm around her almost automatically. She feels comfortable, and sleepy. She kind of doesn't want to get up.

"You can stay, if you want." he says quietly. Gert does want. She wants so much.

"Okay." She curls up closer to him, resting her head on his chest.

She sleeps better than she has in days, and it has everything to do with the slow rise and fall of Chase's chest and the sound of his heartbeat.

~~~~~

He wakes up before Gert.

She's still snuggled up against him, her hair a mess and snoring softly. Chase weighs the pros and cons of getting up. Pros: he'd get to wake her up with a mug of overly sweet coffee, just the way she likes it. Cons: he has to actually _get up._

He shifts to get out of bed, hoping he doesn't wake Gert up. He's not that lucky, though, because as soon as he moves away from her she tries to pull him back with a muffled "stay".

And suddenly he wants to stay there forever, but _coffee._ Chase presses a kiss to her forehead and says, "I'll be back in a minute, I'm just going to get some coffee, okay?" She hums in approval, and he gets out of bed, pulling on a pair of pyjama pants and a t-shirt and heading downstairs.

~~~~~

Gert could probably stay wrapped up in his bed all day thanks to the Teacher's Development day today. But without Chase it's not as enjoyable, and she lasts ten minutes before she decides to go downstairs. She reluctantly rolls out of bed, pulls on her panties, and throws on one of Chase's old jerseys.

When Gert pads into the kitchen, he's facing the coffee pot, rooting around for the sugar in the cabinet above it. The radio is playing softly, some jazzy love song with a lot of violin. She wraps her arms around him from behind, pressing her face into his back.

"You know, I'm pretty sure I said I'd be back up in a bit."

"You were taking too long," she says, voice muffled. Chase is so warm.

"Your coffee's ready." She lets him go, and he turns around and hands her the mug.

She moves to stand next to him against the counter and takes a long sip. He got it just right, because he's perfect and amazing and- okay, Gert's head is definitely still a little wonked from last night.

"Thanks," she leans against him, resting her head on his shoulder.

"I like your hair," Chase says, teasing, because even she knows she has the worst case of bedhead in the history of forever.

"Big talk from someone who takes twenty minutes every morning combing in just the right amount of gel."

"It's only fifteen minutes, I'll have you know."

"Keep telling yourself that, baby." The pet name slips out before she can stop it. It feels right, though, so she doesn't apologize.

Chase cautiously takes her hand in his, turning towards her. "Gert, I was thinking............."

He doesn't continue, so she prompts, "Yeah?" Gert hopes she knows what he's going to ask her. _Come on come on come on._

"Would you-" Chase is interrupted by the song changing, blaring some loud pop song, and it seems to make him lose his courage.

"Would I what?"

".........Never mind." She wants to press him, but it feels too early to get into a dramatic conversation, so she just sighs and squeezes his hand as she rests her head back on his shoulder.

~~~~~

When Chase had let slip that he was seeing someone, Janet's mind had immediately went to Gert Yorkes. When they were children, the two were inseparable, and Janet isn't likely to forget the long hours of her son waxing about awesome she was, how cool she was, 'wow Mom did you see what she just did?' So yes, when her son says he's dating someone but doesn't tell her who, Gert was her first guess.

But she hadn't expected to be right.

The two of them are standing in the kitchen, Gert's head on his shoulder as they talk quietly. It's sickeningly sweet, and Janet doesn't want to interrupt, so she turns around and heads back out the door. She'll find something else to do today. At least she knows Chase has a date to the charity ball next weekend.

~~~~~

"Hey, can I sit here?" Nico asks, lunch tray in hand. She looks kind of nervous, like either Gert or Molly would ever say no. Gert nods, and Nico sits down and starts picking at her lunch.

"Did you hear what happened to Mateo yesterday?" Molly asks, trying to start up conversation. Gert doesn't even really know who Mateo is, but she's going to assume he's someone popular in Molly's grade.

"Why would I know that? Molls, you know I was at Chase's all day yesterday." Yesterday was awesome. They did nothing all day, just hung out in their pyjamas- well, Gert was in Chase's jersey, but that sort of counts, right? And watched old movies. She even coerced Chase into watching Roman Holiday with her, even though they've both seen it a thousand times (Chase's mother has a bit of a crush on Audrey Hepburn).

"And all the night before that. What do you guys even do, have horror movie marathons? I don't get it." Nico chokes a little, and they share a look, trying to hide their laughter. "Anyways, he went......" Molly continues on a long, complicated story of Mateo and his exploits at the science museum. It involves a giant model planet, a rubber bouncy ball, and a lot of chaos. Gert is glad she wasn't there.

"Nico, who's funeral are you going to? And why is the dress code grim reaper chic?" Eiffel mocks as she walks past. Gert really is never going to understand her.

"It'll be yours if you don't shut the fuck up about my friend." Gert says, because she doesn't just get to _speak_ to people like that.

"Oh, and you're one to talk, you look like a trash can puked on you and you didn't even bother to fix your hair. Chase, hi!"

Chase sees Eiffel and swerves around her to sit next to Gert, shooting Eiffel a look as he says to Gert, "Is she bothering you?"

"Yes, but it's........it's fine, Chase. Whatever." Eiffel huffs and stalks over to where a bunch of her friends are sitting, and Chase puts a hand on her back, moving it up and down to comfort her. Gert hates that that kind of stuff can get to her. She knows it shouldn't.

"You know she's wrong, right? And who cares what she thinks, anyways." His hand doesn't move from her back, and he keeps eye contact with her until she nods.

"Thanks, Chase."

"Anytime."

Molly picks up her story where it left off and Karolina finally, finally shows up.

"Yo, Lesdean."

"Hello, Peppermint Patty." She sits down on the other side of her and digs into her salad, while Chase looks on in confusion.

"Okay, I get the Lesdean one, but why Peppermint Patty?"

"Well, first of all," Karolina starts, "York Peppermint Patties and Gert Yorkes, we see the connection, and second of all," Gert puts her had over Karolina's mouth to stop her.

"Okay, that story does not need to be told to the table, Karo. Unless you want me to spill the story of how you got that tattoo, you won't say another word on the subject." She nods, and Gert takes her hand away.

"You have a tattoo?" Nico asks. She's blushing, just a little. Or maybe she's blushing a lot and Gert just can't tell because of her makeup.

"Yeah, but she can't show it to you just right now, wouldn't want to take her top off in school." Karolina elbows her, and Nico blinks a few times, and her breathing speeds up a bit. Interesting.

At some point, Chase's arm moves around her shoulder, and stays there until the end of lunch.

__________

Karolina really doesn't understand why Gert and Chase can't just talk to each other. Opposite sex relationships are so complicated for no reason at all, it really just doesn't make sense.

~~~~~

"Hey, are you going to that party tonight?" Karolina asks over the phone. It's a Friday, and Gert had been planning to stay in and watch TV, but she's up for a party.

"Sure, who's house, again?"

"Danny Fierro's. It starts at six, but Danny has a weird concept of time, so show up anywhere between then and nine and you should be fine."

Gert changes out school clothes for a paint flecked flannel and jeans, eating a slice of reheated pizza for supper before heading over to Danny's house. Gert doesn't know Danny that well, just that he's part of the tech crew for their school's drama program. She knows he has a fossil collection, and that he really likes Aaron Tveit, and that's about it.

When she gets there around eight, there's music pouring from the open windows, and people are already sitting in a lazy circle passing around a blunt. Ah, the advantages of not having any neighbours in a two mile radius and a forest surround the property.

She finds Karolina in the span of fifteen minutes, and a violently pink drink is thrust into her hands by the host. It's overly sour, so she hands it to Karolina, who can eat an entire package of Warheads in an hour.

The party is great for the first hour and a half or so. There's no drama, and it's a chill kind of party, so she lets herself get tipsy. She'll call a Lyft home, there's no way she's getting a ride from Karolina like they'd planned, seeing as she's drunkenly flirting with Nico on the couch in the living room. Nico is sitting in her lap, and it's about the cutest thing Gert has ever seen.

But then she moves out to the front porch. She sits on the porch swing for a while, nursing her rum and coke and watching people get high on the lawn.

She doesn't see Abby until it's too late to avoid her, her fiery red hair bouncing as she advances. She's already got that puppy dog look that Gert knows she's just using to get to her.

"I don't want to do this right now, Abby." She says, because she knows the whole reason Abby approached her in the first place is to beg and plead to try again. Gert genuinely hates it when she does this.

"But, angel, I'm so sorry, can't we try again?" She sits down next to her, and Gert immediately stands up.

"No, I told you I was never getting back together with you and I meant it, Abby. Can't you take a hint?" She starts to leave, but Abby grabs her hand, stopping her.

Abby stands up, getting close, too close. She leans in and kisses her, and Gert is so surprised that for a second she does nothing.

Then Gert pushes her away, wiping her mouth and shouting, "I said no, Abby, what the hell! I have a boyfriend, will you just leave me alone?"

"You have a boyfriend? Why didn't you just say that-"

"Because it's none of your fucking business! You cheated on me! You don't get to know that kind of shit, okay? You revoked the fucking privilege when you gave up our eight month relationship for some _girl,_ so just finally leave me alone!" Gert stalks off and walks off the property, doesn't stop walking until she reaches an empty playground.

She sits in one of the swings, listens to the creak of unoiled iron as she starts to cry. She tries to fight it, at first, but within a minute of sitting down she's sobbing. She has to fold up her glasses and put them in her shirt pocket so they don't get fogged up. Why does Abby have to do this? Every time they see each other, she tries to make a move, and the only reason Gert let her get anywhere close was because of the stupid, stupid alcohol messing with her brain.

__________

_Oh, no._

Can't just one night be good for Nico?

Her and Alex had finally broken it off a couple of days ago, and it went surprisingly well. She didn't even have to block his number. And her and Karolina have been hard-core flirting, so when Karolina invited her to this party of course she came. And for the past hour, Nico has been sitting in her lap, giggling and talking over the music blaring in the background, and she thinks by Monday she'll be able to say 'I kissed Karolina Dean and it actually went well this time'. Last time didn't go so good, because she was still going through some shit, and her sister was busy with school and Nico couldn't reach her, and there was no way she could talk to her mom about it, but this time Nico is pretty sure she's going to end up with a girlfriend.

But now the night is completely fucked, because she just saw the girl who is basically her friend's girlfriend kiss someone else.

She doesn't see much through the window, just a girl that, unfortunately, is unmistakably Gert macking on some redhead. Gert moves out of the sightline of the window right after, though, so she doesn't see the rest, and she doesn't want to. Nico does not want an up and close look at Chase being cheated on.

"Karolina, who was that girl?" She asks, but Karolina doesn't respond. Nico is pretty sure she's taking a nap. She's way past tipsy now, and Nico is going to have to call a Lyft for her soon.

She sighs, because she knows she has to tell Chase. She pulls out her phone and tries to figure out what to say.

**_Hey, I know this is going to be hard to hear but i'm at a party right now and i just saw Gert kiss someone_ **

**_Oh._ **

**_I'm really sorry i just felt like i had to tell u_ **

~~~~~

Gert doesn't know why she can't stop crying. She's been sitting here an hour, and she's probably going to get a nosebleed from the dehydration, but she can't force the tears to stop flowing.

She's probably going to have to call someone soon. She can't get a ride from Karolina, and she can't for the fucking life of her remember the number for Lyft. And her data is full up for the month, so she can't Google it either.

She pulls out her phone and goes through her contacts, still sniffling. Karolina's out, that's obvious. Her parents are away at a conference, so she can't call them. Gert isn't sure she would, anyways. They'd want to cheer her up, and that's really not what she needs right now.

So that leaves.....Chase.

She stares at his contact info for a minute, putting off making the call. She's not sure she wants him to see her like this. Is that stupid? Gert isn't sure.

She forces herself to press the call button, but turns out it doesn't matter, anyways. He doesn't pick up.

~~~~~

_"Hey, uh, I guess you're asleep right now. Which is weird, for you, seeing as it's only, what? Ten thirty? But it's none of my business, I guess. I, uh, really need a ride? I was at this party, and something happened, so I ran off. And I'm kind of drunk so I can't.......can't remember the number for Lyft? Anyways, uh, If you get this, I'm at a playground on Fair Street, you know, the one with the yellow slide? I don't know why that's important. Sorry. Well, uh, call me back?"_

Gert sounds awful, like she's been crying her eyes out. Chase has to go get her. When she'd called, he hadn't picked up, because he doesn't want her to know he's miserable, but there was no way he wasn't listening to that voicemail.

He wipes away his tears and gets in his car, thinking about how stupid he's being. Gert kissed someone else. She kissed someone else, so obviously she doesn't feel the way he does. But Gert, under everything, is his friend first. And Chase Stein wouldn't be Chase Stein if he didn't help his friends.

He drives and drives until he reaches the playground with the yellow slide. He sees her sitting on the swing-set, purple hair glinting in the light of the streetlight. Chase hates that he apparently doesn't have her anymore. Maybe he never really did.

He gets out of the car and Gert looks up at the noise, nodding when she sees him. She wipes at her eyes when he sits down in the swing next to her.

"Hey." Chase says quietly.

"Hi," she croaks, "I'm sorry I called you. I know it's late. I just. Um. I didn't know who else to call." Chase takes her hand, because he knows she needs it.

They walk back to the car, her hand still in his, and he desperately wants to ask her what happened, why she kissed someone else, if he, somehow, thought wrong on them being exclusive. But he doesn't. He can't do that to her, not at eleven o'clock on a Friday night when she's just bawled her eyes out. He won't.

~~~~~

It's a long drive back to her house. Gert sits with her legs pulled up against her chest, head resting on the top of her knees as she watches the lights pass. She starts counting them at some point, avoiding conversation, not because she wants to, but because she knows she'll probably start crying if she does.

She has to try, though. Chase deserves some sort of explanation.

"I guess you're wondering why I'm so upset, huh?"

"It had crossed my mind, yeah."

"Um, so. I went to that party because Karolina was going. And she wanted me to go. But only a little while after I got there, Nico showed up? And they kind of got sucked into each other, you know, so after a while I went to sit on the porch swing." She has to stop to clear her throat, then continues. "And of course, because the universe hates me, my ex shows up. Do you remember Abby? Sorry, that was stupid, she doesn't even go to our school, of course you wouldn't-"

"If she's the reason you skipped a three days of school for 'personal reasons' a couple of months back then I remember her." Chase's voice is soft, but she can hear something indeterminable in there too. He takes her hand over the console, squeezing it.

"Oh. Yeah, she was. I'm surprised you remember that. Well, uh, we dated for eight months? But she cheated on me. And it was awful. First time's the worst, I guess. But she just won't give up on trying to get back together. Every time we see each other I have to either hide or deal with her begging. And she really hurt me, so obviously I don't want to get back together, but she just doesn't understand that? So, uh, anyways. I tried to leave when she came up to me, because I'm kind of drunk, right? But she didn't let me. And she kept calling me angel, which I hate, because she cheated on me, she doesn't get to-" Gert stops for a second so she can swallow a sob. "But then she kissed me. And for a second I didn't know what to do, because what the fuck, right, but then I, uh, pulled away and cussed her out. Told her I have a b- told her I was seeing someone. And only then did she look like she knew what she did was wrong, and she had the fucking nerve to ask why I didn't just tell her, as if she even has the right. Ugh, sorry for dumping this on you. I'm still kind of tipsy, if you can't tell."

"No, it's fine. Um, I'm kind of glad, actually. Nico saw her kiss you and told me and I totally thought you were going to want to stop what we're doing. And I don't think I could handle that." Chase says it like a secret, and she supposes it is.

"I can't believe you didn't ask me about it right away, I could never have that level of restraint." She brings his hand to her lips and kisses it, saying, "You're so good."

~~~~~

Oh, no, Chase is getting choked up. It's just, that's kind of the sweetest thing anyone's ever said to him. Gert is so kind.

"Yeah?"

"Of course, Chase."

~~~~~

They rest of the drive goes by in relative silence, and soon they reach her house. The lights are on. Looks like Molly waited up for her.

Gert leans across the console and kisses him softly before she can think better of it. She cups his face in her hands, and their noses bump. It's a quiet kind of kiss, sweet and slow.

"Thank you," she says when she pulls back, "It really meant a lot to me that you'd just pick up and come get me even though you were upset with me." Her hand doesn't move from his face.

"Gert, I'm pretty sure you could stab me and I'd still lo-loan you gas money. Are you gonna be okay?"

"Yeah, I think I will be. Totally thanks to you, by the way. I should go, though. I'll call you tomorrow?"

Chase nods, and she kisses him again, just a peck, before getting out of the car.

As soon as she walks through the door, Molly starts yelling at her from the living room.

"Don't even try to tell me he's not your boyfriend, Gert, I _saw_ you kiss him!"

~~~~~

So, Chase is in love with Gert. Okay, he can deal with that. He's glad he recovered so quickly, that probably wouldn't have gone over great.

When he gets home, he flops onto the bed, thinking. He's _tap tap tapping_ his fingers for about twenty minutes before he hears his mother's heels clacking on the hardwood floor as she walks through his open door.

"Hi, Mom."

She sits down next to him on the bed, but he doesn't move from his position. "Hey, sweetheart. Where'd you go, earlier, hm? You didn't tell me you were leaving."

"Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to. Gert needed me to pick her up from a party."

"Right, the girlfriend. I should've guessed. You know, I always thought you two would get together. How long ago did you start dating, again?"

Chase almost wants to tell her that Gert's not his girlfriend, not yet anyways, but he doesn't, because they hardly ever talk like this. She smoothes a hand over his hair, and he lets out a slow breath.

"About two months ago. Um, Mom........how do I know if I'm in love?"

"Oh, honey, do you even have to ask? You've been pining over that girl since before you knew what love even meant."

~~~~~

"How do I even do this?" Gert is so pissed. She has a math test in two days, and she doesn't know shit about trigonometry. Her and Chase have been helping each other (her helping with his Spanish project, him with math) though she's not sure if that was a good idea, because with him here she's not sure she's paying full attention. They're sitting on her bed, which of course brings back memories of other things they've done here, and Chase smells really good, okay? And looks really good. And talks really good. And- okay, she's getting ahead of herself. That's not even proper grammar.

"No, see, it's simple, you just-" And then he goes into a long, complicated explanation about adjectives and hypotenuses. By the end, though, she thinks she understands. Mostly.

She writes it down and practices a couple of times, just to make sure she's got it, then asks, "Do you wanna get started on your project, now?"

Gert helps him through the first part of his famous latinx people in history essay, but she (totally accidently) ends up going on a little rant about the awesomeness of Frida Kahlo.

"Did you know she showed up to her first solo exhibition in an ambulance? During that period of her life she had something going on with her foot, I think it was called gangrene? So she was bedridden, but the show was about to happen, and I guess there was no way she was missing it, would you if you were a female artist in the nineteen-fifties having her first solo show? So she shows it in the ambulance, how fucking bitchin' is that? I totally want to go to the Blue House when I'm older." It occurs to her that Chase has, instead of listening to her, been staring at her lips while she's been talking.

"Are you paying attention to what I'm saying? Like, at all?" Gert kind of hates herself for not being mad, because that's something she should be mad about, right?

"Uh.....something about a blue house?" He's still staring at her mouth.

"If it gets you to pay attention after you can kiss me." Gert says, because if she makes it seem like a favour she'll feel less guilty about it, less guilty about the fact that she still hasn't fucking asked him to be her boyfriend.

Chase leans in, cupping her neck as he kisses her. It's a lot softer than she'd expected, from the way he'd been looking at her. Her hands twist themselves into his shirt and she keens, just a little, as he slips his tongue into her mouth.

A door slams somewhere in the house and he pulls away, wiping at his mouth. "I'm good now."

Gert nods, biting down on her smile, and they get back to work.

~~~~~

It's The Day. The charity ball is in three hours, and Gert is both parts nervous and excited, excited because she's going to a fancy party and she's going to look hot as hell, but nervous because she thinks she's going to finally, finally ask Chase to be her boyfriend.

After she drives Molly to her friend's house for the afternoon, she starts the overcomplicated Routine she's had planned since Chase invited her to this. She gets a shower and shaves, then throws on a face mask while she paints her nails a glossy black that Nico lent her. Well actually, Nico gave it to Karolina to give to her, because they're (fucking finally) dating now and Gert sees Karolina more often. She blow dries and curls her hair, and after drinking a smoothie in her fancy bathrobe (it's silk and cost her eighty bucks but spending ridiculous amounts of money on luxury things is Gert's unhealthy version of self care that she rarely indulges in), she gets started on her makeup.

She does the negative space liner that Nico coached her through a couple nights ago, because she's a makeup goddess and Gert is only marginally good, and carefully applies the fake lashes Nico recommended, because her glasses totally don't go with her outfit. Gert applies her favourite red lipstick, a garnet shade that stays on for hours.

And then she steps into her dress and ties the ribbon on her heels. Gert loves these shoes, they look like the shoes of a ballerina who became a stripper for funsies.

And then she waits. She's still got a half hour until Chase said he'd pick her up at six, so she opens up a magazine and reads until the doorbell rings.

The best thing about California is that she doesn't have to ruin her outfit with a coat. And it means that, as soon as she opens the door, Chase jaw drops. She sees his pupils dilate, and he looks at a loss for words.

"Hi, Chase," She says to prompt him, because it seems like if she doesn't he'll just stand there staring for the next hour.

He seems to reboot as he blinks, hard, like he can't believe what he's seeing, and says, "You look fantastic."

She smiles because she knows it's true, and they walk to the car together, Chase's eyes not leaving her.

They're halfway through the drive, just chatting, when Gert says, "I know you're probably gathering up the courage to ask, so no, we're not having sex right now, I don't want to be late and I'm not having sex in a car," while she's checking her lipstick. She knows what that look in his eyes means, and she's not having it.

"Not even a fancy car where the leather seats go back all the way?"

Gert makes a contemplating noise, then says, "Tempting, but not tonight."

He makes an overdramatic disappointed face, and she laughs.

"So what is this going to be like, anyways? I know there's going to be dinner and an auction, you told me that, but what's my ~role~? Am I just here to be your arm candy or something?" She says it jokingly, because she knows that's not how he sees her. If it was she wouldn't even be here.

"No, no, of course not. Never. At these types of events if you're not part of a couple it kind of looks bad, because rich people love to gossip, so we kind of just hang out and do some networking."

"Oh, so we're a couple now, huh?" Gert says teasingly.

"Shit, are we-"

She takes his hand and squeezes it. "I'm just messing with you, Chase."

"Oh, good."

"I like the suit, by the way." It's a dark burgundy colour, and he looks hot as hell (not that Gert would tell him that, she's not that bold). He's not wearing a tie, which he's done so often for every event she's ever seen him at that, at this point, she's pretty sure he just doesn't know how to tie one.

"Thank you. You look better than I ever could, though. Is that what you were doing at the mall a couple weeks ago?"

"Yep. Hey, did Nico tell you her and Karo got together? Fucking finally, right?"

"I know, they're so happy it comes off of them in waves. Oh, we're here."

He pulls into the parking lot, and Gert gasps at the building. This is, by far, the fanciest place she's ever been.

~~~~~

Chase helps Gert out of the car, struck once again by how good she looks. The gold silk of her dress glides down her body, and her hair shines in the light pouring out of the building as she tucks it behind her ear. Chase is absolutely enamoured with her.

They walk into the hotel arm in arm. The dinner goes well, they get sat away from his parents with a group of people around their age. Gert, for someone who claims to be awkward, is absolutely crushing the networking thing, and ten minutes after they eat he loses her to the crowd.

He walks around trying to find her, then spots her talking to some guy. He knows that being jealous is irrational, but the way the guy she's talking to is standing too close and the look he's giving Gert is really fueling the green eyed monster.

He makes his way over, lightly putting his arm around her waist and saying, "Hey, where'd you go? I couldn't find you."

"Oh, I was just talking to Timothy about the new bill they're trying to pass in the senate. Timothy, have you met Chase?"

He shakes his head and they shake hands. Chase only stares him down a little bit while he gives him a smile that could probably be called intimidating.

"I think the auction's about to start, we should go sit down."

As they make their way back to their seats, Gert smirks at him and says, "I didn't know you were the jealous type, Chase."

"What? I wasn't jealous."

"Uh-huh, and the sky is green. You were totally jealous."

"Was not."

"Was too."

"Was not."

"Was- oh they're talking, we should be paying attention." Gert puts her hand on his arm, and they turn in their seats to face the stage.

The auction, as most auctions are when you're not participating, is boring. And long. And boring. It goes on for so long, in fact, that by the time it's done Chase takes Gert by the hand and takes out to the balcony, just to get away from the stuffy upper class people that think they're such good people for buying an expensive lamp. Gert has definitely gotten to him, because before they started this he didn't even think about that kind of stuff. He would have just showed up, braved a boring evening, and not thought about what he was even there for, what the charity does for the community, how much money was being raised. But now he knows that tonight is to raise money for a new school being built, and that they have enough money now to build the school and give it a whole computer lab. For someone who's been going to prestigious academies since he started school, that might not feel like a big deal, but Chase knows that some schools don't even have WIFI, much less a computer.

"Woah, you can see everything from up here." They're standing at the railing, looking out over the city. Chase thinks he can see the Hollywood sign in the distance. It's a miraculously clear night, the full moon fat and bright in the sky.

He looks up at the stars, and says, "You know what this reminds me of?"

"Maybe, but tell me the story." Gert rests her head on his shoulder, and he moves his arm around her waist.

"In eighth grade, when we were partners for the astronomy project. Do you remember that night when you couldn't get the telescope to work? And I had to help you? Put my hands over yours and guided you on how to do it properly." She hums in acknowledgement, so he keeps going. "I was totally putting the moves on you that night. I'd had a crush on you forever. And then, like fate, or something, you fell back against me. And you said-"

"'You know, I still haven't had my first kiss yet'. I remember."

"Yeah, so I kissed you, under the stars. It's one of my best memories." Even if, after the project ended, they didn't talk to each other at all.

"Mine too. It was kind of the most romantic thing to ever happen to me." Gert tucks a piece of hair behind her ear, and looks up at him.

"Gert, I......." Okay, this is it. All he has to do is get the words out.

"Yeah?"

"I was wondering......" Come on, he can do this.

"Chase," she says, reaching up and putting a hand on his cheek. She has such soft hands. "If you're asking me to be your girlfriend then the answer is yes."

"Really?" Because he has to check. Because this can't possibly be real right now, it's too good.

Gert kisses him soundly, pulls away, and says, "Is that a good enough answer?"

He nods, and they kiss again, her other arm thrown over his shoulder and his hands on her waist.

And out of every time Chase has kissed her, he's convinced that this is the best one.

**Author's Note:**

> some Stuff about this fic: I'm gay. Anything Karolina says regarding being a lesbian is from personal experience. Also, I've never used Lyft so I don't know how it works, and I've never been to CVS. title is from Lose It by Oh Wonder. thanks for reading!!!


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